MIRACLE

31: Frustrations

Chapter 31

-Maddox Astor-

/15 years ago/

The air in the house felt thick, heavy with the weight of unspoken grief. It was her birthday, that little girl, but the joy that should have filled the space was suffocated by a suffocating cloud of sorrow. I was only ten, barely a man, but the world had already pierced my heart with its unjust cruelty. My mother, the sun that warmed our lives, had been extinguished one year ago today, her light snuffed out by the very act of bringing that girl into the world.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. I still didn't understand how a day meant to celebrate life could feel so unbearably sad. The house, once filled with her laughter and the scent of her cinnamon rolls, now echoed with an oppressive silence. Every corner held a memory, a phantom touch, a whispered echo of her voice. And in that silence, my anger festered. Day by day it has grown.

I resented her, my little sister. Not because she was a bad person, but because she was the embodiment of everything I had lost. She was a constant reminder of that man and what vile thing he did to my mother and the void that occupied the space where my mother had been. Her tiny fingers, her innocent smiles, her gurgling laughter – they were all sharp, cutting reminders of what I could never have again.

The day of her first birthday, Drix and I sat in our room, our fortress of solitude. The sounds of the party drifted in, muffled by the walls we had kept to myself. Balloons, laughter, and the sweet scent of cake – all of it was a mockery of the pain that gnawed at my insides. I couldn't bring myself to join them. How could I celebrate when my world had been shattered? How could I smile when my heart aches with a longing that could never be fulfilled?

The hate I felt wasn't directed at that girl. It was a twisted, misplaced rage, a desperate attempt to lash out at the injustice of it all. I hated the world for taking my mother, for every cruel thing that had been done to her, for leaving me with this gaping hole in my life. I hated the joy that surrounded me, a cruel reminder of what I could never have.

As the day wore on, I felt a strange mixture of guilt and resentment. Guilt for my inability to feel happy for my sister or to even get myself to acknowledge her as my sister, resentment for the burden of grief that had been thrust upon us. I was just a child, but I felt like I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders.

In the quiet of our room, I found myself staring at a picture of my mother. Her smile, captured in a moment of pure joy, seemed to mock me, a constant reminder of what I had lost. I wanted to scream, to lash out, to make the pain go away. But all I could do was sit there, trapped in a cycle of grief and anger.

"Max, Drix, come downstairs now, the party is about to start." Dad poked his head inside our room, momentarily destroying our little bubble.

We could never get our father, how easily he accepted and loved that girl when she's not even his daughter.

"We don't want to go." My twin spoke first, shaking his head, looking seconds away from crying. I held his hand and gave it a comforting squeeze.

"That girl's birthday is not worth celebrating." I hissed.

***

"Whoa, that's a lot of gifts." Damion commented looking at the tons of bags and boxes of gifts of different sizes with his eyes widened in awe.

There are a lot more inside our car, actually.

Anyway, our eldest brother just came home from Italy last night after talking to Gabriel's father.